


The Third One

by missazrael



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: AU Verse, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/No Comfort, M/M, Modern AU, a bunch of ficlets, canonverse, sleep is a real theme here, some connected to each other some not, still taking requests over at my Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:25:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missazrael/pseuds/missazrael
Summary: What do you do when you know you're the weakest member of the trio?What do you do when you wake up and have to face the rest of your life without the most important person in the world?What do you do when you can't sleep at all without dreaming?A series of ficlets with different narrators.  Some are happy and sweet, most of them are not; some are AU verses, most of them are not.  The narrating POV will be in the author's notes at the beginning of each chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canonverse, Armin POV. Manga spoilers if you're not caught up!

Armin stares down at his hands. They look the same as they always have, pale and narrow, his fingers calloused by the maneuver gear and ink-stained from a long night hunched over papers and books in the library, too feminine to really look like a man’s hands, too rough to look like a proper lady’s hands either. They look the same as always, but for the bite marks on his thumbs, and the steam rising from them, puffing towards his face and obscuring his vision.

For a moment, Armin remembers the Colossal Titan, remembers dying inside a cloud of steam, and he thinks he’s going to be sick.

“You almost had it that time!” Eren’s blow to his shoulder, meant to be reassuring, nearly drives Armin from his knees to the ground, and he shakes his head as he watches his self-inflicted wounds steam away until there’s nothing left. “I swear I felt something! If you just keep trying, you’ll be able to do it!”

Armin shakes his head again, but Eren doesn’t listen, prattling on about shifting and muscle fibers and everything else he’s told Armin a thousand times, too excited by the prospect of having another shifter around to realize that Armin doesn’t want to hear this, that he never wanted this burden, this curse, and now he can’t even use it properly and why, why didn’t they choose Erwin instead of him?

“Eren.” Jean’s voice is a welcome distraction, flat and unemotional and calm. “Take a hike, Hange wants to see you.”

Some complaining, some scuffling, a few curses from both of them, and then Eren is gone. Armin hears him go, too horrified by the sight of his hands, completely healed and unscarred again, to watch his retreat. He hears the sound of Jean sitting down, and knows he’s crossed his legs at the ankle and plopped down, a move that should look awkward and Jean somehow makes looks graceful, and he can’t remember when he started paying attention to Jean’s movements, only that somewhere along the line, he had.

Jean is quiet for a few minutes, simply sitting beside Armin companionably, and Armin waits until his heart has stopped pounding to get his knees out from under him and settle onto his haunches. Jean rolls one shoulder back, opening up the side of his body, and Armin only hesitates for a second before leaning against him.

“Armin, what are you afraid of?”

Armin shakes his head. “What kind of question is that?”

“A simple one. Here, I’ll start. I’m afraid of spiders. I know they can’t hurt me, but I still don’t like them. Too many legs.” Jean nudges him gently. “Now you.”

Armin thinks for a moment. “Big dogs.”

“Big dogs?” Jean sounds surprised.

“One chased me when I was a kid. Mikasa had to scare it away.” Armin laughs, ashamed and trying to hide it. “I’m bigger than they are now, but they still scare me.”

“Hey, that’s okay. You’ve got a reason to be scared. Me, I just shriek like a baby and flap my hands when I see a spider.”

“No, you don’t. I’ve seen you around spiders before.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Armin sees Jean smile, as thin as whip, as sharp as a razor. “In my heart, Armin. In my heart, I’m shrieking and flapping my hands.”

Armin nods, and finds that he still remembers how to smile, as he pictures Jean–brave, intelligent, beautiful Jean–screaming and standing on a chair as a tiny spider trundles its way across the floor.

“What else?”

“No, that’s not fair. You first.”

“Okay.” Jean sighs. “I’m afraid of being the last one left.”

“The last one left?”

“Of the 104th.” Jean waves a hand out in front of them, over the titan training ground, littered with logs and canons and splinters and everything else Hange and Eren have used in their relentless, endless search for answers. “I’m scared that someday, I’ll look around, and I’ll be the only one still in the Survey Corps. That everyone else will have retired, or gotten hurt, or… or just won’t be there anymore.”

Jean goes quiet then, and Armin doesn’t say anything either. It’s a fear they’ve all had, he’s fairly certain, but only Jean has been courageous enough to voice it out loud.

“I’m afraid of the titan.” Armin hears the words before he realizes that he’s been the one to say them.

“Which titan?” Jean asks, but the way he puts his arm around Armin’s shoulders says that he knows exactly which one.

“The Colossal one.” Armin shudders, and leans into Jean’s comforting warmth. “I dream about it sometimes. I dream that I’m high in the air, higher than all the walls, and I can… I can see forever. But then the steam rises up around me, and I’m blinded, and I hear… I hear the sounds of grappling hooks and gear lines, and I know they’re coming for me, but I’m too slow to lift my hand and…”

“Who’s coming for you?”

Armin blinks, surprised by the interruption. “The Survey Corps.”

“If the Survey Corps were coming for you, it’d be to protect you, not attack you.”

“Then it’s not even my dream! He’s in my head, Jean, and he won’t leave, and he’s making me dream his dreams and I can’t transform and I’m worthless!”

“Hey, come on, don’t do that.” Jean turns around, lifting his other arm, and pulls Armin in towards his chest. Armin hides his face there, embarrassed and horrified in equal parts by his tears, but unable to keep them at bay. Jean lets him cry, lets Armin lean on him and get it all out in a way that neither Eren nor Mikasa would be able to, and when Armin’s tears finally start to taper off, he feels a little better.

“Do you remember when we first started training?”

Armin nods against Jean’s shoulder; of course he does. Those days are a distant memory, but one he can call up with startling vividness when he wants to.

“Everyone was so scared when we started using the gas.” Jean chuckles, the sound startlingly deep from his narrow chest. “I sure was. I thought I was going to pee my pants the first time I dropped out of a tree, and the only thing that kept me from pissing all over the place was knowing that it would show up on those damn white pants. Who the hell ever decided that white was a good idea for our pants, huh?”

Jean’s voice, cheerful and nostalgic, has Armin laughing a little too. “I thought I broke my back, the first time the gear snapped me backwards.”

“I thought you did too, the way it yanked you off the ground.” Jean chuckles again. “The point is, we were all scared to death then, right? And now, using the gear is just like walking.”

“Maybe for you it is.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one. But you’re not afraid of it anymore, are you?”

Armin shakes his head; no, he’s not afraid anymore. He stopped being afraid of the gear a long time ago. Now his fears are vague and formless, but no less terrifying than the gear lines had once been.

“So I’ll ask you again: what are you afraid of?”

Armin looks back down at his hands; his healed, blameless hands. “I’m afraid that I’m not good enough for it.”

“But you’re the one who has it.”

“I’m afraid that I’ll never be able to transform.”

“You used to be afraid that you’d never master the gear, either.”

“I’m afraid that Captain Levi made a mistake.”

“You confident enough in that fear to tell him that to his face?”

Armin surprises them both by laughing. “Gods, no. I like all my teeth where they are.”

They lapse into silence then, but it’s a better silence now, a comfortable one, and Jean gives Armin’s shoulder a squeeze before he gently pushes away and stands up. “You can do it. You’ve shown time and time again you can do anything you put your mind to.”

“I guess.” Armin stands up too, and raises his eyebrows when Jean takes several hasty steps backwards.

“I don’t want you to step on me,” Jean explains, and somehow, that gives Armin the courage to try again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reiner POV, canonverse. Manga spoilers up until Chapter 94!

The bullet shells are thick and greasy in Reiner’s fingers, and sweat drips into his eyes as he tries to load the rifle. Faster, faster, he’s already wasted too much time, if he drops the bullets he’ll lose even more, and then he’ll be out of the training program and sent home. He stuffs the bullets in the rifle and smacks it flat against his shoulder, the impact nearly overbalancing him and sending him backwards onto the ground. 

Behind him, he can hear Porco’s harsh guffaw, and Marcel shushing him, and Reiner’s cheeks burn with shame. He’s not good enough, he’ll never be good enough, he’ll never be a warrior, he’ll never meet his father and bring him home to his mother, he’ll never have a real family.

The instructor–just one of many, and for a moment, Reiner is horrified that he can’t remember the man’s name–stalks towards him and snatches the rifle away, leaving Reiner’s hands grasping stupidly in the thin air. 

“Braun!” The man’s voice is like a slap from a god. “Are you so fucking stupid you thought this rifle would fire!”

Is it a trick? Sometimes it’s a trick, and Reiner doesn’t know how to answer.

The instructor cracks open the rifle’s stock and shoves it back into Reiner’s hands, so abrupt and rough that Reiner fumbles and nearly drops it. “The bullets are in it backwards! You try to fire that thing and it would blow up in your face! And then,” the instructor leans down, the stink of his breath, heavy and clouded with the rot of foods Reiner will never be able to afford to eat, almost suffocating as it washes over Reiner’s face, “there’ll be one less stinking Eldian in the world, and it’ll be a better place for it.”

He straightens up, and Reiner bows his head in shame, his hands trembling around the rifle. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“Good news, maggots!” The instructor’s voice booms across the shooting yard. “Cadet Braun here has agreed to clean and reload all your rifles! You don’t even have to bring them back to the barracks with you, he’ll carry them back!”

All around Reiner, there’s the sound of rifles falling into the dirt, getting filthy, sand and grass and dirt working into their guts, and Reiner flinches. He’ll be cleaning rifles all night.

“Now get out of my sight, you filth!”

Reiner hears Porco laughing again as he stoops down, reaching for the nearest rifle. He can only carry three at a time; it’s going to take him several trips to get them all back to the rifle room, and then even longer to clean and reload them.

“Here, let me.” The rifle that Reiner has been focusing on skitters through the dust, picked up by someone else, and Reiner lifts his head. It’s Bertolt, quiet Bertolt who seems to get by without much abuse from the instructors, Bertolt who holds a rifle like it’s part of his arms, Bertolt who shoots like it’s something he’s been doing for as long as he’s been breathing.

Reiner tries to glare at the other boy, but he can also feel tears of gratitude welling behind his eyes. “You don’t have to. He’ll yell at you too.”

Bertolt looks over his shoulder, then back at Reiner. “He’s already gone. Come on, let’s get out of the sun.”

Reiner nods, then drops his head again so Bertolt won’t see him crying, won’t know that it’s the first kind voice Reiner has heard that wasn’t his mother’s. “Okay.”

“If you put the bullets in your pocket in the right way, it’s easier to load the rifle. Want me to show you? We can practice after we’ve cleaned them.”

“Okay.” Reiner swallows back his tears, and picks up another rifle before trailing after Bertolt, dragging them across the yard and towards the coolness and shade of the rifle room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts), if you'd like to make a request for this collection.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jean POV, modern AU. No angst here, this is a meet-cute story!

“Just pretend to be my date!”

“What? No.” Eren crosses his arms over his chest and glowers, like the very idea of pretending to be anyone’s date, and specifically pretending to be Jean’s date, offends him to his very core. “That’s stupid.”

“Eren.” Jean swipes a hand back through his hair, sending it into unruly cowlicks, and glares right back. “The CEO is going to be there!”

“Yeah. So?”

“So I need a buffer!”

Eren laughs at that, and Jean wishes they were six again and could communicate solely through swipes at each other’s face. “Have you met me? Like, for real, have you met me? I’d be a terrible buffer and you know it. Ask Mikasa.”

He has a point, but Jean isn’t going to concede it. “I already did. She’s busy.”

“Looks like you’re going to be a dateless wonder then, aren’t you?”

“I hate you so much.”

“Yeah, I know, I hate you too. Want to play another round of Borderlands?”

“I’m going to prove how much I hate you by making you the conductor of the meat symphony.”

~*~

It turns out that the function is busy enough that Jean’s dateless wonder status goes largely unnoticed. He schmoozes and networks with the best of them, handing out his business cards like they’re candy, tossing back gin and tonics and making plans for golf outings later in the month. It’s going well, but the CEO hasn’t made an appearance yet, so Jean ducks out into the alley behind the ballroom for some breathing space and privacy.

He only gets a few minutes before the door beside him crashes open, making him jump and almost drop his phone, and he whirls around, ready to curse out whoever just scared him half to death.

The volley of profanity dies on his lips as he gets a look at the guy: tall, dark haired, olive skin with a smattering of freckles, dressed in a suit that cost a whole hell of a lot more than Jean’s off-the-rack affair, and looking generally harried. The stranger glances around, and when he sees Jean, his eyes light up.

“You! Are you with the party tonight?”

“Yes.” Jean sees no reason to lie about it, he’s clearly not a waiter or anything. “You okay, buddy?”

“No!” The guy takes a few deep breathes, clearly trying to calm himself, then looks Jean up and down. “Hey, did you come to this thing with anyone tonight.”

“No.”

“Good.” The guy reaches out and slips his arm through Jean’s, pulling him close, and Jean makes a sound of surprise as he tries to not be too obvious about how he’s inhaling and smelling the guy’s cologne. “I need you to pretend to be my date.”

Jean is smacked in the face by an overwhelming sense of deja vu, but hey, he might as well roll with it, right? “Sure. What’s your name?”

“Marco.” The guy–Marco–stops and looks Jean full in the face for the first time, and his eyes are chocolate brown and guileless. “I… I’m sorry I’m dragging you into this, but my ex is in there being a real piece of work and I’m feeling childish tonight and you can back out of this if you’re not into it?”

Jean laughs and pats Marco’s arm. “It’s fine, I’m into it. Any other details I should know?”

“Marco Bott, twenty-six, Gemini, I’m in HR, and can we say this is our third or fourth date? Not serious yet but getting there?”

“Sure. I’m Jean Kirschstein, twenty-five, Aries, Design and Development, and a very important question. Have we slept together yet?”

Faint color rises in Marco’s cheeks, and Jean can’t deny the attraction that’s rising in his chest. This guy is goddamn adorable. “Um, no?”

“How disappointing, but maybe I’ll get lucky after tonight?”

“Maybe?”

“I’ll have to play my cards right, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts), if you'd like to go make a request for this collection.


	4. You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally going to be for something else, but that hasn't materialized so it's getting thrown in here.
> 
> Levi POV, canonverse. Major character death, although it happens before this fic takes place.

You wake up, and for one brief, shining moment, you forget that he’s gone.

Then the memories come flooding back, the horror and violence of yesterday assaulting you all over again, and you close your eyes, wishing childishly that you could just make it all go away. You wish that you could go back to sleep and forget, for a few blissful hours, that you now live in a world where he isn’t, where he’s gone and won’t ever be coming back. You wish you could change things, that you could have been the selfish, emotionless prick that everyone thinks you are and gone against what he wanted. 

You wish you’d kept him here, where he belongs.

But you didn’t, and now it’s the first day of the rest of your life where Erwin Smith no longer exists.

You get up, the joints in your shoulders creaking and stiff. Yesterday had been brutal in so many ways, and not the least of them had been the time you’d spent in that house, cleaning at a fevered pitch, cleaning away the filth of five years neglect and abandonment, cleaning it until it hadn’t been right—it would never be right, not when you’d been sure that you would die first, not when you’d been convinced this was a task you’d never have to do—but had been close enough. It had been the best you could expect, the best you could do before the skin on your hands started to crack and bleed, the best you could manage before you’d gone bleary-eyed and weak-kneed with exhaustion and grief.

The house, at least, had been a gift. He’d told you about it, up on the rooftops, after the shifter was done screaming and the others had been gathered around a steaming body ripped from the back of a titan’s neck.

“My parents used to live here.” The newest recruit, the one who had spoken up for Erwin, the one not blinded by dark compassion, the one who had stayed with you and Hange, the one who had witnessed death instead of rebirth. “They had a house in this district.”

You hadn’t looked up, your eyes glued to Erwin’s face as he had fought for those last few breaths, but Hange had. “They weren’t here when the Wall fell, were they?”

“No.” He’d shaken his head, his ridiculous hair bobbing with the movement, falling in front of his eyes. “I moved them to the Interior the week before.”

“Good timing.”

“Yes.” He’d looked over his shoulder and flinched, like he’d just heard something the rest of you couldn’t, haunted by his own nightmares. “They were going to sell the house, but then, with everything that happened…”

You’d been ready to snap at him, ready to shout at him to get to the point, but you’d been afraid your voice would have shredded around the words. But he’d shaken himself, and finished what he had to say. “You could use it. The house, I mean. For… for the Commander.” He’d looked at Erwin’s body with grim, morbid fascination before looking away. You’d glanced up at him, and realized, for the first time, that Erwin’s blood was still drying across his back. “You could put him there.”

Hange had clapped him on the shoulder then. “Thank you, Flocke. That’s very generous of you.”

He—Flocke—had ducked his head again and shrugged with one shoulder. “They, my parents, they wrote the house off as a loss five years ago. I make— _made_ —enough money in the MPs to keep them in the Interior. They’re safe.”

No one is safe, you’d thought as you’d moved one hand to close Erwin’s eyes. No one is safe as long as we’re breathing.

Your hand had passed over Erwin’s mouth, and no breath ruffled across your palm, his lips not moving to form a kiss on your calloused hand. You had touched his chest, and his heart, his lion’s heart that had carried him all the way to Shingashina, through titans and corruption and storms that would have killed a lesser man, was still in his chest. He was gone.

And it had felt like you were dying with him.

It still feels like you’re dying. You get up, and you dress, your body going through the motions without thought, without consideration. You wish you could focus on it, that you were so tired and so beaten down that getting dressed was a trial, was difficult, but it isn’t. You are all too well aware of the hole in your chest, of the gaping, horrible wound no one else can see, of the spot where Erwin Smith used to be and now isn’t, and you wonder if it will ever go away.

You wonder if, once you’ve completed your mission, once you’ve done the last thing he ever asked of you, if you’ll be able to lie down then, if you’ll be able to close your eyes and cross your hands over your chest and just let go. If you’ll be able to follow Erwin to wherever it is he’s gone.

You hope so. You hope that someday you’ll be able to go to sleep, and oblivion will be waiting for you on the other side. Oblivion, or Erwin. Anything without him in it is the same.

You hope he’s waiting for you. You hope for that more than you’ve ever hoped for anything else in your entire pathetic, misbegotten life.

You hope he understands. You hope you made the right decision. You hope he isn’t angry.

You hope that some part of him—any part of him—still exists. 

Hange finds you, standing in front of a window and staring blindly out into the street, and she puts her hand on your shoulder. “Come on,” her voice is impossibly gentle, and you remember that she lost someone yesterday too, that Moblit had sacrificed himself to save her, “come on, I’ve made some tea.”

As you leave the house, you don’t look back. You close the door behind you, and lock it carefully, so no vermin can get in. You allow yourself one moment, one moment where you press your forehead against the door’s stout wooden frame and think about the body in an upstairs bedroom, wrapped in Survey Corps green, resting and dreaming its eternal dreams. You wonder if the spot next to it on the bed is growing cold.

And then you step back, and turn around, and know, deep inside yourself where only one beam of light has ever intruded, that you’ll never get a good night’s rest again until your mission is finished and you can lay down your blades and follow Erwin into the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts), if you'd like to make a request to get added to this collection.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiner/Galliard POV, canonverse. Manga spoilers to chapter 94!

Reiner snores when he sleeps. He’s snored since he was a kid, his nose bent and broken at the bridge, the result of a well-timed rifle butt to the face, and most of the time, he sounds like he’s slowly dying.  


Galliard wishes he would hurry up and just do it already, or someday he’s going to lose his mind over the constant, endless noise and put Reiner out of his misery by smothering him with a pillow. He wishes they were allowed, as warriors, to have their own quarters, but that’s something Marley will never allow. Too much freedom, too much independence, and the rats might start to realize they outnumber the cats, and that simply can’t be allowed.  


Galliard swallows and pushes away the treasonous thought, the thought that Reiner could report him for, the thought that would get his titan taken away--and he can’t lose his brother’s jawbone, he can’t, not until he works through the memories of the woman who stole it and finds his brother’s memories buried underneath--and wraps a pillow around his head. It doesn’t drown out Reiner’s racket, but it helps muffle it a little, and maybe, just maybe, Galliard will be able to sleep.  


Maybe he’ll dream of his brother. Maybe he’ll finally find his way down into Marcel’s memories, and see his older brother again.  


~*~

“You can’t keep doing this.”

“Why not?” Reiner hears the whine in his voice, and hates it. “Why can’t I? What does it hurt?”

Bertolt smiles, his eyes downcast, and Reiner wishes he would look up, wishes desperately he would look up just once, would meet his eyes so he can look into them again and tell Bertolt everything he should have told him a long, long time ago. “It isn’t healthy.”  
“I don’t care.” Nothing in Reiner’s life has been healthy, not from the first time his mother told him the story about his father--and what a godsdamned fairy tale that had been, a fairy tale Reiner hasn’t believed in years but wishes he were still innocent enough to trust--and this is just the last in a long line of self-destructive dominoes, all falling over each other towards his end. “I don’t care, this is where you are, this is where I want to me.”

“But I’m not here, Reiner. You know that, don’t you?”

“No.” Reiner denies it immediately, knowing what that question means--it’s always the same, every single fucking time it’s the same, but it never stops him from reaching for Bertolt, from trying to catch him, from trying to hold him in place for just one more minute, one more moment snatched away from the abyss. “No, I don’t know anything anymore, not since you died, don’t leave me, Bertolt, don’t go away again...”

“You can’t keep doing this.” And no matter how much he reaches, no matter how much he wants it, Bertolt is stretching up and away from him, his skin peeling away to reveal the warrior underneath, his spine elongating and sending him stretching up into the sky, steam billowing off him, and from the corner of his eye, Reiner sees a tiny, dark shape, its blades flashing silver in the sun.

~*~

“Wait!”

Galliard jumps, knocked out of the faint doze he’d fallen into, and groans out loud. He’d been so close, almost on the edge of finding it, of finding Marcel again, and he hurls his pillow across the room. 

He wants to feel satisfaction when it connects and Reiner grunts, but he can’t. All he can feel is a deep, aching sadness that his brother is forever beyond his reach, and that he can’t keep chasing his ghost.  
He can’t keep doing this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a [Tumblr](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts), if you'd like to make a request to be added to this collection.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jeanmarco, Marco's POV. A rough Caprica/Battlestar Galatica AU.

You wake up, and the first thing you see is Jean’s face.  
“Marco?” he asks, and something clicks inside your head. Marco... that’s you. You’re Marco, and he’s Jean, and you love him, and he loves you, and you feel your mouth twitching up into a smile.

“Hey, baby,” you say, and Jean’s eyes fill with tears. He rests his head on your chest and cries, and it’s only as you’re stroking his hair that you see the IV line in the back of your hand.

~*~

An accident, Jean tells you. Extremists on the train line, that group of kids who want to watch the world burn. You’ve been in a coma, but you’re awake now, and you’re fine. You’re healthy, if still a little wobbly, and you can come home. The cats miss you. Jean misses you.  


You agree, and you check out of the hospital the next day. You ignore the little niggling thought in the back of your mind, the one that says it shouldn’t be this easy, not after an accident like Jean described. But you want to go home, and Jean wants to take you home, so you go.  


~*~

He takes you back to your house, and it’s just like how you remember, everything in its place, and Parvati and Aisha meet you at the door, crying and winding around your legs. When you pick them up, they purr and rub their heads along the underside of your chin, and you carry them into the living room while Jean makes tea.  


“How much do you remember?” he asks as he sits beside you, offering you a cup of fragrant jasmine tea.

You sip your tea and think. “We were on the train, with... with Reiner! And Bertolt...” because of course Reiner and Bertolt were together, they never went anywhere apart if they could help it, “... and Armin?”  


Jean nods, watching you over his tea cup. “And then what happened?”  


You close your eyes, trying to pull the memory up, but it’s faded, washed out, like the bleached images on the very early tablets, when the only colors they could manage were green and yellow. “I was sitting next to you, and you told me a joke... we were laughing... and then...” You make a loose fist with your free hand, then splay out all your fingers. “Boom.”  


Jean nods again, and it looks like he’s starting to tear up again. “Boom.” He pauses, then tilts his head to study you. “The last thing you remember before the explosion was us laughing?”  


“Yes.” You smile at him, leaning in to kiss away the tear gathering at the corner of his eye. “Not a bad last thing to remember, huh?”

“No.” He leans in, and your arm slips around him, natural as anything. “Not a bad thing at all.

~*~

When you wake up the next morning, Jean is gone. There’s a note on his pillow, written in his familiar scrawl, telling you that he had to go to work, and he’ll be home later. You think it’s a little odd that he’d have to go back to work so soon, but you get out of bed and pad downstairs to the kitchen.  


While you’re eating breakfast, you find your tablet, tucked away in your bag just like you remembered, and sit down to read the news. There’s an article about the explosion, and you’re sickened when you read the death toll. So many dead, including the young lady who ignited herself. You can’t help but feel some sympathy for her, and wonder who poured so much poison into her ear that death seemed like a better option.  


There aren’t many stories after the one about the explosion, and you wonder about that, but not too hard. The cats are twining around your ankles again, and you take them out into the backyard, so they can play and stalk butterflies.  


~*~

The days pass, and you don’t go back to work. You don’t find that odd; it’s summer, and school is out of session. After a few days, you start putting together your syllabus for next year, and planning for your new batch of students. For some reason, this makes Jean sad, and you don’t understand why.  


~*~

Reiner comes to visit you, and he’s bright and vibrant and excitable, swooping you up in a bone-crushing hug, squeezing surprised laughter out of you. You pat his back, and ask him where Bertolt is.  


He shakes his head, and you remember that Bertolt was on the train too, and feel like you’ve wandered into a minefield. “Is he... is he still in the hospital?”  


Reiner hesitates, then nods. “Yeah. Getting stronger every day, though! I’ll be able to take him home soon!” And then he pushes on, in that way he has, bulling past the negative and swallowing away what’s bothering him, and you let him. “Let’s go for a bike ride, huh? That’ll be good for you!”  


You go for a bike ride with him, long and meandering, and Reiner pushes himself until he’s running with sweat and panting like a old dog, but he looks happy, so you don’t say anything.  


~*~

“Why hasn’t Armin come to see me?” you ask Jean one day. “Reiner comes all the time, but I haven't seen Armin since the accident. Or Eren. Why haven’t they come?”

Jean’s face blanches, and he shakes his head. “Armin... he didn’t make it.” He looks up at you, and his eyes are haunted. “I tried, but I couldn’t save him.”  


“Oh, no...” You feel tears well up, and you wrap your arms around Jean as you shake with fresh grief, mourning your lost friend that you didn’t even realize was missing. “No, no, no...”

“I’m sorry,” Jean whispers into your hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t have time...”

~*~

A few days or weeks later--it’s hard to tell, time has taken on an odd, elastic quality, and it’s hard for you to track the passage of the days, and there’s no calendar in the house or on your tablet--you overhear a conversation Jean is having, when he thinks you’re out in the garden with the cats.  


“Because he keeps asking for you! You know I wouldn’t ask this if it were for me, but it’s for him! He’s the one that misses you!”

Eren. He must be talking to Eren, no one else gets that particular tone out of Jean, and you linger in the hallway, listening.

“No, of course not. That would... that would be a bad idea.” A pause, and an exasperated sigh, and you know without seeing it that Jean is running a frustrated hand through his hair. “Because it would, Eren! It would disrupt things!”

Another pause, and Jean’s voice is softer, forcing you to strain to hear him. “No. No, not yet. I’m trying, you know I am, but... I can’t put a puzzle together if I don’t have all the pieces. It’s the same thing with Bertolt. Just... not enough pieces.”  


You frown; what is Jean talking about? Puzzles and Bertolt and Armin? It sounds like Jean is talking about his work, a level of computer programming that is far beyond your understanding, but that’s nonsense. Bertolt needs doctors, not a computer programmer, even a preternaturally gifted one. And Armin doesn’t need anything anymore, not when he’s dead and in his grave.  


“You’ll be the first to know if there’s a breakthrough. But... don’t get your hopes up, okay? And come see him. Please. He misses you.”

It sounds like the conversation is ending, and you slip away, back to the garden and the cats, and you even manage to smile when Jean comes back, hiding your turbulent thoughts behind a placid mask.

~*~

“What day is it?”

Reiner looks over his shoulder at you, one of his hands still reaching for the next ledge on the rock wall. It’s rock climbing today, and you’re both warming up on a wall before tackling an actual rock expanse later, and you are conveniently ignoring how you don’t remember there being any rock expanses big enough for climbing nearby. “I think it’s Wednesday?”  


“What month?” You hoist yourself up after him, your harness cutting into the muscles of your thighs, and your progress with physical rehabilitation has been astounding, especially considering you’ve never seen a physical therapist. But here you are, chasing Reiner up a rock wall and barely breaking a sweat.

Reiner shrugs blithely and keeps climbing. “One of the summer ones.”  


“But which one, Reiner?”

He looks back, and his brow is drawn down, troubled. “You should probably ask Jean.”  


~*~

“What month is it, Jean?”

“June.” The answer comes easily, and you relax. The question had been plaguing you since this afternoon, but at least Jean knows the answer.

“What day?”

“The fourteenth.” He smiles and drops a wink at you, but there’s something sad about the gesture that you just can’t place. “Just a couple of days until your birthday.”

“I’ll be twenty-seven.” You marvel at the idea, that you would be one year closer to thirty, and Jean chuckles.

“That’s right.” He takes your hand and kisses the back of it. “Don’t make plans for your birthday night, okay?”

“I never have plans.” And you don’t. You only leave the house with Reiner, really, and spend most of your days waiting for Jean to get home. You feel like you should be bored, but somehow, you aren’t. Your days are very full with the cats and the garden and with making dinner for Jean. Somehow, he always knows the exact ingredients to buy for the dinner you want to make each night.

~*~

Your birthday dinner is a quiet affair, with only yourself, Jean, and Reiner in attendance. Bertolt is still sick, and Armin is dead, and Eren sends his apologies--through Jean--but he’s unable to make it. You shrug it off and pretend that doesn’t hurt your feelings terribly. Armin might be dead, but you’re still alive, and it’s cruel how Eren is shutting you out.  


Dinner is good, though, and when you’re done eating, you all move to the backyard and watch the fireflies start to come out.  


“I remember being twenty-seven,” Reiner reminisces, twirling his bottle of beer in slow circles. “What a year.”

You frown. “Reiner, you are twenty-seven. We’re the same age, remember?”  


If you weren’t watching, you wouldn’t have caught Reiner’s reaction, the way his eyes go wide, the way he almost drops his bottle of beer, the way he shoots a stricken look at Jean. “Uh, yeah! Of course! I meant the year up until now!”  


Jean looks thunderous, and he stands up. “Reiner, I think it’s time for you to leave.”  


“He doesn’t need to leave, Jean.”

“Yes, he does.”

Reiner apparently agrees with Jean, and scoots out as quickly as his legs can take him, breathing an apology as he goes. You turn to face Jean then, and cross your arms over your chest. “Jean, what’s going on?”  


Jean sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Do you remember the work I was doing? Before the accident?”  


~*~

Of course you remember Jean’s work. It had been a huge deal, a contract he’d gotten for a positively absurd amount of money, the next great leap forward in computer programming. Some kind of AI work, based off information gathered and compiled into one program, and then recreated in select zones of the Web, peaceful, serene places where the AI wouldn’t get upset. Where it wouldn’t realize it was an AI.  


The next great leap forward for grieving, the company who’d been writing Jean such massive checks had said. Imagine being able to recreate Grandma, or a child dead from cancer, and interact with their avatar. Imagine what people would pay to be able to do that.  


Imagine the world that would create, where death was not really death, as long as there was enough information available on the deceased.

~*~

“Of course I remember. What does that have to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you.”

~*~

Imagine a sunny, bright morning. Imagine getting really good news from work, and taking your best friends and lover out to celebrate at your favorite brunch place. Imagine getting on a train to go home, tipsy from mimosas and laughing and full of joy, and your arms around your lover’s waist and your face in the back of his neck, breathing in his scent and thinking about what you’re going to do to him when you get home.  


Imagine your world erupting with explosions and dust and screaming.

Imagine your head ringing as you push your lover’s body off your chest, imagine your lungs filling with smoke and blood and tiny pieces of glass, imagine realizing that you’re alive because you were behind your lover and his body took the brunt of the explosion. Imagine seeing him twitch and shudder, his face and head a bloody wreck, and imagine remembering the device you have in your bag, the little scanner that records brainwaves, the little scanner they gave you at work to use on your cats, the little scanner that can record what you need to make an avatar.  


Imagine fumbling, frantic and coughing and delirious, to hook the device to your lover’s ruined head. Imagine holding his hand as he shakes and dies, imagine watching the little bar on the device slowly fill with green light as it records his scattered, stuttering brainwaves.  


Imagine seeing your friend, pinned under part of the collapsed tree, reaching for you and begging, pleading, to do the same thing to his lover, to his lover that’s pinned beside him, his neck snapped and his eyelids jittering out of sync.  


Imagine the rescue workers swarming in as you’re attaching the device to your other friend, the one with the snapped neck. Imagine fighting them off, begging them to just give you a little more time. Imagine your friend, still pinned under the train, throwing a punch at a rescue worker and knocking him backwards.  


Imagine being sedated. Imagine being pulled away. Imagine watching the lights on the scanner, still amber and only halfway full, fading to darkness along with your vision.

~*~

Jean is crying by the time he’s done telling the story, and you’re crying too. So that’s why time is so elastic, and why Eren won’t come visit you, and why Jean gets so sad when you’re working on your syllabus for next school year. There will never be another school year; there will never be another year at all. You’ll be frozen here forever, always twenty-seven years old, pieced together with your dying brainwaves and what Jean could gather from your social media presence.  


“Were you ever going to tell me?” you ask him, and Jean nods, his head on your shoulder.

“I... I was going to have to. Soon.”

“Why?”

“I’ll show you.”

~*~

It looks like a regular computer screen, but Jean tells you that it will actually let you look out into the real world. It hurts your head to think too much about that, so you don’t. You squeeze Jean’s shoulder as he fiddles with it, and he looks up at you and smiles, a weariness behind his eyes that you never noticed before.  


“Don’t you have to go?”

“No.” Jean turns a switch, and the screen lights up, starts booting. “Someone’s waiting there for us.”

You wait in anticipation as the screen lightens, your hand finding Jean’s and holding it tightly, and of course it’s Reiner waiting on the other side, waiting in the real world. It’s a Reiner like you’ve never seen before though, bearded and noticeably older, his temples patterned grey and his eyes exhausted. He smiles, though, and waves at you.  


“Hey, guys.”

“Hi,” you breathe, and Jean squeezes your hand. “Oh gods, Reiner, you got old.”

He laughs at that, and runs a hand through his hair, longer and softer than you’ve ever seen it. “It’s been a long time since I was twenty-seven, Marco. You look good, though. You’re exactly the same as I remember.”  


“Thank you.” Does he really not notice a difference? Are you really as real as you feel you are, or is that an illusion, some part of Jean’s clever programming? 

“Can you show him?” Jean asks, and Reiner nods, turning the camera around and holding it at an awkward angle, far too close to the floor, and you realize he’s sitting down and holding it in his lap as he wheels through a hospital corridor. Reiner is in a wheelchair.

“I broke my back in the train attack,” he says quietly, like he can read your thoughts. “They can make miracles happen these days, but they still haven’t figured out how to regrow a severed spine.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Reiner laughs from somewhere above the screen. “Jean made me an avatar and then you always went biking or running or whatever with me. It’s not so bad.”

He stops outside a hospital room, and picks up the screen so you can see his face again. “Are you sure about this, Jean?”  
Jean nods. “Show him.”  


Reiner’s brows, still narrow but gone silvery with age, draw down in concern, but he obeys, rolling through the door and turning the camera around to face the body in the bed.  


It’s Jean, an old and wasted Jean, his head connected to a device that you recognize as a more modern, sleeker version of the virtual reality headsets you know, his body skeletal and twisted under a sheet. You watch in horror as Jean’s chest lifts and rises, moved by a heaving machine beside the bed, and turn to look at your Jean, the one who is still twenty-seven and beautiful and perfect.  


He’s looking grimly at himself, and doesn’t meet your eyes. “Lung cancer. From all the dust and shit that got thrown up by the explosion.” He looks at you out of the corner of his eye. “The doctors say I’ve got weeks left. Maybe less.”  


“Jean.” You don’t even realize you’re crying until you feel the tears streaming down your cheeks. “Jean, what are you going to do?”

He turns then and hugs you, and you cling to him like a drowning man, suddenly desperately afraid he’s going to leave you, that one day he’ll die in the real world and then never come back. “I’m going to record my brainwaves. I’m going to upload them to this avatar. And then...” he waves one hand, “and then I don’t care what happens to my body. Because I’ll be home.”  


~*~

One day, Jean doesn’t get up to go to work, and comes down to eat breakfast with you, and you know what happened in the real world. You don’t care. You have all the time in the world now, and you and Jean go out into the garden to play with cats long dead but eternally young.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun added bonus fact, something I wanted to include but couldn't fit in: Reiner has a necklace that he always wears, both in the real world and as his avatar. It's a small flash drive, on a chain just long enough for it to rest over his heart. It's the brain scan of Bertolt Jean managed to get before they got interrupted, which isn't enough to make an avatar like Marco's.
> 
> I have [, where I'm still taking prompts for this collection.](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Farlan POV, about Levi and Erwin. No angst, no drama, maybe even funny at the end? I thought it was funny...

It’s not hard to tell when Levi is out of sorts about something. He broadcasts it with every movement, with every look. To someone who doesn’t know him, it might not appear that different from his everyday behavior, but Farlan has known Levi for years, and it’s not hard for him to figure out what’s going on.

Everywhere Levi goes, he’s watching. He’s watching, and seeking him out: Erwin Smith, Squad Leader, rising star of the Survey Corps, the man that tracked him through the underground and brought him to his knees. He’s subtle enough to not sharpen any knives while he’s watching, but that’s mostly because his favorite knives were taken from him. Farlan is completely convinced that if Levi still had his knives, he’s be pointedly sharpening them or using them to clean his nails in full view of Erwin Smith.

It’s almost painful, watching it all. Painful because of how blatant Levi is being, and how Erwin seems completely oblivious to it all. Levi glowers; Erwin ignores him. Levi bristles whenever Erwin gets too close; Erwin doesn’t care and gets too close anyway. Levi spits curses whenever he has to speak to the object of his ire; Erwin smiles politely as he rants, and then answers him as though Levi has just laid out a careful, well-thought out dissertation. Yes, perhaps the Survey Corps could be doing better with the tea ration, he’ll take that under advisement and bring it up to Commander Shadis the next time he sees him. Thank you for bringing it to his attention. And then he glides away, all broad shoulders and smooth, muscular stride, leaving Levi spitting and furious but unable to lash out.

The Underground only has a few hard and fast rules, but one of them is that you never, ever stab a man who wants to die, and only a man who wants to die would turn his back on Levi so readily.

It’s driving Levi crazy, and Farlan has given up on trying to talk him down, talk him out of his revenge fantasies, and is just letting Levi do his thing. Why not? It’s none of his concern if the big Squad Leader ends up stabbed, and even less of his if he ends up fucked, which is what Levi is really angling at by now.

Isabel, who normally follows Levi like a puppy, has taken to spending more time around Farlan, irritated and put out at how she’s been forgotten, and she settles in next to him one afternoon after training. Farlan offers her his water bottle, and she swigs deep, watching the latest edition of The Levi and Erwin Smith Mating Dance. Levi is unsaddling a horse and shooting furious little glances at Erwin over his shoulder; Erwin has his back turned to Levi and is engaged in conversation with Mike Zacharius, the only man in the Survey Corps bigger than himself, but he keeps twitching his shoulder in an odd way, like he wants to turn around but knows he can’t. Mike, never easy to read on the best of days, is an impenetrable, mysterious shield, but when he catches Levi openly watching, he reaches out and claps one big paw on Erwin’s shoulder, and Levi positively bristles.

“It’s like watching cats trying to play with each other,” Farlan observes, and Isabel snorts, nearly choking on her water.

Mike and Erwin finish their discussion, and Erwin turns around as Mike strides away. He catches Levi watching him, and they both freeze, caught out in the act of looking for each other. Farlan can’t believe it, but Erwin Smith almost looks abashed, and the lines through Levi’s shoulders aren’t as tense as they usually are. He leans forward, silently rooting for them, begging them to just stop this already and _go_ to each other, but then Levi’s horse throws its head up and prances, impatient to go back to the stable, and Levi has to catch its reins. The moment is broken, and when Levi looks back up, Erwin Smith has gone, following Mike to wherever he was going.

Levi looks around the yard, surprised, then hoists the saddle over one shoulder and starts leading the horse to the barn. He passes Farlan and Isabel, and catches their eyes. Only for a moment, but it’s pretty easy to catch the frustration and repressed emotion skating over their silvery surface.

“You okay, big brother?” Isabel offers, and Levi stops for just a moment.

“His ego is so visible, I can almost watch the shitty thing grow.” Then he and his horse are gone too.

“That’s not the only thing around here that’s growing,” Isabel mutters under her breath, and Farlan surprises them both by erupting into laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you do when you have a narrator (Levi) who just doesn't want to cooperate? You take the narration away from him and give it to someone else, and then suddenly things flow a lot better.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reiner POV, with Galliard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note! This is one of the darker ones in the collection!
> 
> TW for sexual abuse, dubious consent, and slurs

Reiner comes back to the room late, and Galliard is up and waiting for him, ready to pounce.

Reiner expects it now, being greeted by demanding hands and rough, bruising bites when he stays out late. Galliard knows where he is, and what he’s doing, and how none of it is anything Reiner wants. It doesn’t matter; he always stays up, and he always greets Reiner the same way.

Somehow, it’s become comforting. 

When Galliard is done, he sits back against the wall, his legs splayed carelessly out in front of him, and Reiner lies on his stomach, his arms crossed under his head. He’s healing, but slowly, his heart not in it, and out of the corner of his eye he sees that Galliard is watching the wisps of steam rise up towards the ceiling.

“How many tonight?” Galliard asks the question abruptly, breaking the silence with a voice that’s too loud, too strident, shattering the only moment of calm Reiner has had all night.

Reiner shrugs with one shoulder. “I forget. Five?”

He hasn’t forgotten anything. It had been eight, nine counting Galliard, which he doesn’t, and he had been aching and sore when he’d walked in the door. It’s worse now, the bruises Galliard left on him, the rips and tears he’d made with his entry, sluggish and reluctant to heal, but Reiner doesn’t mind. He thinks that, maybe, he’ll be able to sleep tonight.

“You’re such a slut.” Galliard sneers the words, expecting Reiner to rise to the bait, preparing himself for when he doesn’t.

He’s not disappointed; Reiner shrugs again and turns his face away, tensing his shoulders for the inevitable onslaught. “I guess.” 

He doesn’t say what they both know: that if it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. It would be Pieck, or Galliard himself, or, worst of all, one of the recruits. When it’s really bad, when it’s painful and humiliating and they’re laughing as his steam rises and bathes their faces, Reiner thinks about them. He thinks about Colt and Udo and Sofia and Gabi. Most of all, he thinks about Gabi, and if it has to be someone, better him than her. 

He would do anything to protect her from the ugliest parts of Marley.

“You’re a slut,” Galliard taunts, rolling the word in his mouth, and Reiner can feel him gathering his legs under himself, getting ready to pounce again. “You’re filthy and disgusting, just like an animal.”

Reiner shrugs for the third time, and seconds later Galliard is on top of him, his thighs on either side of Reiner’s waist, wrestling him around so he’s on his back, facing him. Galliard gets ahold of Reiner’s wrists and hold them above his head, and while it would be a simple matter for Reiner to throw him off, he doesn’t fight. There’s no point in fighting; Galliard needs to get it out of his system.

“Why do they want _you_?” Galliard hisses the words, and his spittle falls on Reiner’s cheeks like rain. “Why is it always _you_ who’s so damn special?”

Reiner stares up at him, and for just a moment, something flares to life in his chest. Something he thought was dead but was maybe only sleeping, slumbering long and deep down in his core. It burns in his gut, and he lifts his head off the mattress, moving it up to better meet Galliard’s eyes, and snaps “Are you jealous? Would you rather it be _you_?”

And Galliard, amazingly, shrinks back, releasing Reiner’s hands and rocking back on his heels. His erection, half-formed, wilts back down between his legs, and he turns his head, no longer meeting Reiner’s eyes.

“Don’t ask me that,” he mutters, and before Reiner can blink, Galliard has slipped off his lap and retreated to his own side of the room, to his own bed. Reiner watches, flabbergasted, as Galliard tugs on a nightshirt and flops on his bed, his back turned to him, and tugs a blanket up over his shoulders. _Does_ he wish it were him? Does he really think he wants the pain, the degradation, of being one of Marley’s little Eldian lap dogs?

“Porco…” Reiner rises up onto his elbows, and uses Galliard’s first name, extending it as an offering, a chance for redemption, a chance to have someone listen to him and try to set it right.

“Shut up, Reiner.” Galliard’s cutting tone is, at least, familiar, and Reiner closes his mouth. “You don’t know what it’s like to always be the one left behind.”

Galliard reaches behind him to turn down the lantern, and the room is plunged into darkness. Reiner waits for him to say something–to say _anything_ – more, but Galliard is a resolute, silent shape in the darkness, and Reiner eventually lays down and closes his eyes.

No, Reiner doesn’t know what it’s like to be left behind, but he wishes he did. He wishes to gods he doesn’t believe in that it had been him who got left behind, and not Bertolt. He wishes he hadn’t been so desperate to see Bertolt one more time, and that he hadn’t survived the thunder spears. He wishes it had been him.

It should have been him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this head canon that the Marley aristocracy would have developed a taste for, as they'd put it, "slumming," and titan warriors are the best and most luxurious way to slum it up possible. You can do whatever you like and they'll heal, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my [Tumblr](http://krakeryn.tumblr.com/post/161952280272/writing-prompts), if you'd like to make a request to get added to this collection.


End file.
